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Words Will EVER Hurt Me
Girls as Bullies
By Kelly Burgess
It seems that every woman has a story. For Susan Wellman it was the "truly awful" adolescence of her daughter, who was victimized throughout middle school. For Rachel Simmons, it was the emotional scars left by an aggressive third grade classmate who decided that 8-year-old Rachel was to be her victim in a vicious campaign of exclusion. Neither woman had words to tell their stories, so they made them up and made them part of the lexicon.
The words are "relational aggression," and they describe a sneaky form of bullying that experts say is much more common than what we think of as "traditional" bullying, which is when boys physically aggress against other boys. Relational aggression can start as early as second grade and reaches its peak in middle school. It's usually perpetrated by girls against other girls, and the wounds it leaves often never heal.
Unlike traditional bullies who tend to stand out for their boisterous or antisocial behavior, the girl bully is often one of the prettiest, smartest girls in her class, beloved by teachers and administrators alike. Most adults have trouble even thinking of her as a bully because she's so very feminine. She usually has perfect hair, cool clothes and is either a cheerleader or involved in some equally prestigious activity.
She travels in a pack of at least two other girls, and she's in charge of where they all sit, stand and who is allowed to join them. The members of the clique change at her whim, and those who are "out" at the moment are often tortured by the "in" girls in ways that vary from the subtle – ignoring her at lunch – to the overt, such as making up lies and spreading them around the school. Sometimes, encouraged by their leader, the entire pack will turn on a third party, perhaps the school loner or a new girl, making her miserable while maintaining such an ingratiating facade that no adult would ever guess that their school was a veritable abattoir of female emotion.
